PORTAGE — The two new members on the Portage Public Schools Board of Education are a retiree who was making her fourth bid and a Decatur science teacher.

Joanne Willson, 63, a four-time school board candidate, and first-time candidate Geoffrey Howe, 34, a Decatur Middle School science teacher, were the top two vote-getters in the three-person race for two, four-year board seats.

Willson had 2,383 votes, while Howe collected 2,333. In third place was first-time candidate Douglas Nagy, 48, a medical-coding specialist, with 2,021 votes.

Willson, of 7122 Leawood St., is a regular at Portage board meetings and also ran for the board in 2007, 2008 and 2009. She has four grown children who graduated from Portage Northern High School. Now retired, Willson has bachelor’s degree in management, labor and resource economics from Western Michigan University and worked in manufacturing management, banking and as substitute teacher.

Howe, 39, of 2127 Winters Drive, has two children, ages 4 and 1. The Decatur teacher is currently working on a doctorate in K-12 educational administration from Western Michigan University.

The two new members will replace board President John Whyte and board Secretary Deb Polderman, neither of whom sought re-election.

Also on Tuesday’s ballot was Robert “B” Snyder, 46, a health care consultant, who ran unopposed for a two-year term and received 3,324 votes. Snyder was appointed to the board in December to replace then-board President Jennifer Whistler, who resigned. The two-year seat is for the remainder of Whistler's term.

Snyder and the two new board members will join a board that has dealt with difficult issues in recent years, including budget cuts and issues related to school construction.

The board also has struggled internally with how much oversight it should be providing, creating a board rift that led to a daylong retreat last summer designed to address interpersonal relationships. Board members say those divisions have largely healed, but even so, the board has had four presidents in the past year: Shirley Johnson, who stepped down in July at the end of her term; Whistler, who resigned from the board in November for unspecified reasons; Dale Posthumus, who resigned from the board in March, citing tensions with the administration; and Whyte, who will leave the board when his term expires in June.